Journal of Political Science Volume 9 Number 2 (Spring) Article 3 April 1982 Partisan Realignment and Electoral Arrangement in Britain: The MacDonald-Gladstone Pact of 1903 Hugh W. Stephens Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/jops Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Stephens, Hugh W. (1982) "Partisan Realignment and Electoral Arrangement in Britain: The MacDonald- Gladstone Pact of 1903," Journal of Political Science: Vol. 9 : No. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/jops/vol9/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Politics at CCU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Political Science by an authorized editor of CCU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Partisan Realignment and Electoral Arrangement m Britain: The MacDonald-Gladstone Pact of 1903 HUGH W. STEPHENS University of Houston Introduction Elections have been much investigated, and we are well aware that changes in partisan loyalties of major social groups have systemic effects upon the distribution of party power as well as upon other parts of the political system. More especially, we also know that the structure of electoral arrange ments, that is, the rules governing how popular votes are translated into legislative representation, can have an independent effect upon the outcome of elections in these same terms . This is apparent in Douglas Rae's comprehensive examination of the various ramifications of electoral laws, such as the ballot form, size of electoral districts, and formulae for distributing legislative seats, in Maurice Duverger's discussion of the effects of proportional representation upon election of Deputies to the French National Assembly, and in the debate between Jerrold Rusk, Philip Converse, and Walter D.